Y2K Not To Blame For Trinidad Glitch...12/21/99

PORT-OF-SPAIN, Trinidad (AP) - When dozens of debit card machines in Trinidad failed during weekend Christmas shopping, some card users feared the Y2K bug had arrived early. They were wrong. Republic Bank announced Monday that a power outage was to blame for the glitch, which halted machines connected to cash registers across the Caribbean island this weekend. "We don't we want people thinking it's Y2K related," said Derwin Howell, Republic Bank's manager of information technology. The card system was working normally by Monday, he said. In many countries, debit card machines have had to be replaced or reprogrammed because of the Y2K computer bug, a quirk in older computers that causes them to confuse the years 2000 and 1900.